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Hardware

Strange DVD Behavior When Used w/ TV Tuner Cards? 10

Posted by Cliff from the computer-monitors-should-be-legal-DVD-output-devices dept.
Flying_Donut asks: "Greetings! This is related to a question that popped up on Arstechnica. I, and several others are having this problem with our DVD consoles, connecting through either Hauppage TV Tuner cards, or ATI All-In-Wonder Pro cards. The problem is, that on some DVDs, we see annoying scan lines in the movies. For myself, I use BeOS Pro 5.0.3 and the All-In-Wonder Pro card, connected to an external DVD console (a Toshiba SD-2109) and the only time I see these scan lines are on Widescreen DVDS (which copmprise about 99.999% of the DVDs out there). I assumed it was some form of copy protection that the combination of BeOS and the All-In-Wonder Pro card, were seeing (sort of like old Betamax players and copy protection), but the other gentleman with the problem is using Windows (ack!) and sees the problem on some of his DVDs. Others have suggested switching from SVideo to Composite cabling, but it didn't seem to help. In any case, I wanted to tap into the Slashdot community and see what they have experienced and/or had to offer to fix this issue."
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Strange DVD Behavior When Used w/ TV Tuner Cards? More

Strange DVD Behavior When Used w/ TV Tuner Cards?

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  • Field Order (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Sounds like a problem with the field order is causing the problem.

    NTSC is 30 frames per second. But your TV is updated 60 times a second. This is accomplished by splitting each frame into two 'fields', one containing the odd scan lines, and one containing the even.

    I'm not familiar with these TV cards per se, but I would imagine that they are grabbing video at 30 fps and redisplaying it on the screen.

    What is probably happening is that you're not getting the right mix of odd/even fields in some frames, resulting in fields from one frame being mixed with fields from another frame, resulting in horribly nasty looking horizontal artifacts on whatever has moved between the two frames that have been clobbered together.

    You need to check the TV software for a 'field order' setting that says something like 'odd first/even first', and toggle it.

    Also, you can learn a lot about how DVD video is stored and handling during playback by searching the web for info about ripping them to divx or VCD. But that's all I'll say about that. ;)

    Macrovision. Sheesh. Yeah... get a frigging clue, indeed.

  • Try changing the refresh rate of your display.
    Good observation-- but unlikely. Most sanely-written graphics/video drivers will wait for the next VGA vsync before flipping to the next frame in the video stream. This ensures that the "tearing" you're referring to won't happen.
  • Hey dum dum! He didn't say they were engineered that way because of Macrovision, just that they are engineered more loosely.
    I considered that possibility. What he actually said was, "engineered loosely enough... to ignore ", which implies that it was an active decision on the part of the people who designed the TV standard.

    Maybe I read too much into his words. That's certainly a possibility. But he still deserved to be chastized for telling him to "get a friggin' clue." That was the whole point of asking the question-- the questioner was hoping to acquire additional clue on this subject. Berating him was not necessary.

  • This is Macrovision. Surely you read the licensing conditions on your DVDs/DVD player before you bought them???

    Your DVD player *does not allow* you to play your Macrovision-protected purchased discs on anything but a TV set, which are engineered loosely enough (as opposed to VCRs/TV tuners etc.) to 'ignore' the Macrovision signal.

    The MPAA have forced DVD player manufacturers to build in this sort of mostly-ineffectual copy protection to stop pirates like you (hey, youre probably not a pirate, but try telling the MPAA that)from ripping off their IP.

    Still feel like you got a good deal with that $500 piece of crippleware?

    Me, i play my DVDs through a region-hacked, Macrovision-disabled, Samsung SD612 DVD drive/Hollywood+ card. Gives me a perfect picture, AC3 digital out, and the ability to rip, copy and playback my DVDs anywhere i like.

  • I have these same problems described in the article, and I'm almost positive that it's related to copy protection. The Princess Bride plays crystal clear, many of my other movies have little pink lines, especially noticeable when on a red background.

    I've been told by "one who knows" that many early movies by WB didn't have this specific form of copy protection on it, because WB didn't want to pay the licensing fees to "license" this form of copy protection.

    So if you can't check it with The Princess Bride (regularly $14.99 almost everywhere), you might check other WB movies.

    --Robert
  • I use a Toshiba SD-1200 connected with S-Video to my ATI All-in-Wonder PRO in Windows 98, and experience the same problem. I have not even bothered looking into it, but yes, I had the problem. I don't think I tried changing refresh rates - I was probably using 1152x864.

    Anyway, hope this helps.
  • Legal use of the tv card ? To watch tv streams, DUH! Heck, I originally bought my first tv tuner to use my Playstation on the pc instead of fighting for the family tv set. Same thing can apply for a DVD console and/or VCR, although it's puzzling why someone would want to pay more for a true DVD deck when they can get a dvd-rom drive for loads less. Bah, americans!
  • Most people have posted saying this is copy protection, but that doesn't make sense: the guy says this only happens on widescreen dvds; if it were copy protection, it should appear on ALL dvds.

    Of course, I don't have any other idea what might be causing the problem. Have you tried watching the problematic dvds with your card under windows or linux or any other OS? Could just be a problem with the BeOS driver, I guess.

    Good luck figuring out what's wrong.


  • Since you decided to berate the questioner in a most anti-social manner, (rather than simply answering their question helpfully,) I thought I'd point out that your statement:
    Your DVD player *does not allow* you to play your Macrovision-protected purchased discs on anything but a
    TV set, which are engineered loosely enough (as opposed to VCRs/TV tuners etc.) to 'ignore' the Macrovision signal. (emphasis mine.)
    is wrong. TV's are not engineered 'looser' to "'ignore' the Macrovision signal." The various TV standards existed before VCRs and Macrovision. Macrovision takes advantage of the fact that TVs are more forgiving creatures than VCRs are, when it comes to interpretting analog video signals. Analog TVs were never explicitly designed to 'ignore' Macrovision. VCRs originally weren't either, but today they are.

    The questioner's TV card, on the other hand, was engineered from the get-go to be affected by Macrovision. The Macrovision shysters^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H lawyers enforce this, because otherwise TV cards could be used as Macrovision filters. (Whether you would actually want to do this is an entirely different question.)

    Finally, as an example of a useful response, I submit the following suggestion to the questioner: If you have a DVD drive, and your PC is fast enough, you might want to invest in a software DVD player. This method will not suffer from the visible Macrovision artifacts, and will look better anyway. The method you are currently using takes a digital source, converts it to analog, and then back to digital. With DVD software, you stay digital until the video leaves your graphics card's DAC. Thus, the image will be much cleaner.

  • could be "beat lines" (Score:3)

    by scotpurl ( 28825 ) on Saturday December 23, 2000 @06:04PM (#541701)
    The DVD is, what, 30 frames per second, and your screen is rendering 70, 72, 75, or something like that. Could just be the difference in one frequency going against another, which results in some interference.

    Try changing the refresh rate of your display.

    If that ain't it, then I'll buy the Macrovision reason given above. On my Matrox G200-TV, I've never seen anything like this under Win98 or Win2000, even when watching Matrix. (Last time I looked, the card, but not the tuner was supported under SuSE, my Linux of choice, that's why.)

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